


look on down from the bridge

by inamorromani



Category: Naruto
Genre: Blood, Gore, Hurt/Comfort, Infidelity, M/M, Violence, illustrated by steph. i love u wife, u know. ninja type shit...enjoy, ya baby. thats what we like to see
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:02:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23562007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inamorromani/pseuds/inamorromani
Summary: It's hard to tell if Hashirama's aged at all.Includes illustrations from Stephanie (@1O231224 on twitter, @10231224 on tumblr).
Relationships: Senju Hashirama & Senju Tobirama, Senju Hashirama & Uchiha Madara, Senju Hashirama/Uchiha Madara, Senju Tobirama & Uzumaki Mito
Comments: 68
Kudos: 396





	look on down from the bridge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [9cherries](https://archiveofourown.org/users/9cherries/gifts).



Madara doesn’t think he’ll ever get tired of watching Hashirama fight. 

In his old age- older age, anyways- he’s taken to tying his hair back again, a habit Madara thought he’d long since abandoned. He’d worn it up when he was a teenager, and Madara always thought it made him look ageless, beautiful and smart in that way only Hashirama could ever be. If he moves quickly enough now, it comes loose at his temples and frames his face, his furious snarl, his glittering teeth and his narrow, handsome eyes. He’s aged beautifully, if it can really be said that he’s aged at all. Madara thinks- he _thinks_ \- Hashirama must be in his thirties now, meaning he’s lived well beyond the average lifespan of a warring states shinobi. 

Madara, by contrast, was dead to the world. True to his name, the Ghost of the Uchiha had taken up residence in one of the oldest remaining Uchiha compounds, one long since scavenged for anything of value and little more than two clay buildings with green and gold mosaics half shattered on either side of their doorways, framed by evergreens and ruins on all sides. 

It felt homey, felt proper. Returning to the old compound after the _izanagi_ was installed had been a debarkation of sorts. Madara was a relic of the past- and Hashirama is beautiful, so beautiful that it hurts a little, stokes the stubborn, envy-green fire in his chest he’d never been able to stamp out.

Hashirama was never his- not in a way that mattered, anyways.

One of the lightning-nin clips Hashirama’s shoulder, and he turns sharply to the side to evade her. He hurdles himself over a wooden barrier to gather momentum, then circles around and slams his heel into the center of her spine. A shriek dies on her lips, and Madara grimaces. 

He’s more violent than usual today, Madara thinks. He hadn’t been trailing Hashirama for very long, but as far as he could gather, he’d been out on a fairly standard -but considerably long- reconnaissance mission, leaving Tobirama to look after the village in the interim. Ordinarily, such a thought would leave a sour taste in Madara’s mouth, but he doesn’t have the wherewithal to brood about feudal politics when he’s dead to the world and Hashirama is so close to him, and so _alive_.

He’s a force of nature. He always has been. When he fights, it almost looks choreographed. One of the remaining lightning-nin catches him from the side, and before they’re able to fully follow through the motion of their attack, Hashirama interrupts them and slams their body into the ground with his elbow. His armor clatters. There’s no trace of his usual mirth in his features, no small, triumphant smile tugging at the corners of his lips. 

Madara bites his thumb. 

He remembers his last fight with Hashirama so clearly that it makes his heart race- but he remembers the way his face changed most of all, the way he’d turned his sword in Madara’s chest. In the end, it hadn’t felt worth it. Antagonizing Hashirama was almost never worth it.

Another shinobi catches him from the same side, and Hashirama doesn’t seem to have the presence of mind to evade it this time. Madara feels a shudder run up his spine- more abstractly, it feels like all of a sudden the world has shifted two inches to the left. He stands upright, pushing himself off the tree he’d been leaning against for support. He still keeps his chakra carefully suppressed- there’s no point in giving himself away- but there’s a _change_ somewhere, a palpable one, one that makes Madara feel extremely uneasy.

Hashirama sets his jaw and takes a small step backwards, reaching around to cover his injured side. He forms a seal with his free hand and another set of vines and wooden barriers shoot up from the earth. The remaining lightning-nin scatter, two of them- clones, evidently- dissolving in midair. Hashirama looks a bit startled at that, and whirls around, barely evading another blow to his side as one of the real bodies appears beside him. 

From this angle, Madara can see where his armor has shattered- and there it is, a tiny flicker of jealousy that anybody else has put their hands on Hashirama. He hates himself for it. Watching Hashirama age at a distance- watching him slow down, watching him _change_ isn’t a suitable balm for his loneliness. 

Another one of the real bodies appears at Hashirama’s opposite side, clearly meaning to box him in, and Madara watches with a tiny, triumphant smile as he drops to his haunches, causing the two lightning-nin to collide into each other headfirst, electricity dying between their fingers. It’s a little juvenile- playful, almost- but that’s what Madara has always loved about him. Hashirama manages to make everything look so graceful. 

Hashirama straightens up and takes another step backwards, peeling his hand away from his injured side to examine it. A small part of Madara wonders why he doesn’t just heal it anyways- and then again, the healing was an automatic feature of the _mokuton_ as far as he knew. It would be no proverbial sweat off his back to just give his body a few precious seconds to do its job. 

The last lightning-nin lunges from the thicket of trees at Hashirama’s injured side, and Madara stiffens. The shinobi’s palm connects solidly with Hashirama’s already injured flank- blue sparks lick up his tunic, up over the shattered edges of his armor. 

Before the lightning-nin can properly finish his attack and withdraw, Hashirama seizes his jaw and torques his head to the side sharply. He exhales harshly, sidestepping the body as it crumples to the ground, and then goes still, slowly raising his hand to his side again. 

Madara feels a little cold. Even from this distance, he can see how badly bloodied his side is, can see him narrow his eyes as he peels his hand away from his body, turning it over, turning it over, turning it over again like he’s mystified by the sight of his own blood. 

Hashirama coughs, once, and blood sprays from his mouth. 

With his same, bloodied hand, he wipes his chin, examines his thumb- and then he hits the ground with an almost comically loud thump, and Madara worries that he’s shattered his hip- but it’s no matter, really, because it’s Hashirama, and he can heal himself without forming hand signs, can heal himself without having to think about it. 

He starts, cautiously, in Hashirama’s direction, just to check. 

He moves at what feels like a snail’s pace, his heart skipping every few beats. Hopefully, Hashirama doesn’t see him, or rather, doesn’t have the presence of mind to care that he does- he’ll probably think he’s seen a ghost. Hashirama had always been easily frightened, Madara remembers fondly; more than once, he had come into Madara’s living room from his office, draped in a throw blanket and complaining that he’d seen an apparition while working late, had insisted that he just wanted to finish his paperwork with somebody’s company, and then fallen asleep with his head in Madara’s lap.

His chest constricts painfully. He tries not to think about Hashirama’s hands on his waist, Hashirama’s lips pressed innocently against the back of his neck, Hashirama’s hair spilling over his outstretched arm onto Madara’s pillow. 

It was easier to hate Hashirama than to miss him- to miss what could have been, or what was. Mito had complicated things. Madara didn’t blame her, but he didn’t want to think about it either. 

He’s close enough that he can hear Hashirama’s labored breathing, can hear him shift every few seconds, crunching dead leaves beneath the bulk of his body when he moves. Through a tall stretch of brush, Madara can see his armor- what’s left of it- shining in the dying moonlight. 

Madara looks up and holds his breath. 

It’s cloudless, the moon not-quite-full and the stars glittering, picturesque, against the navy of the night sky, fading with each passing second into the orange-grey of dawn. 

_It’s beautiful_ , he wants to say, _I’ve missed you. I’ve missed you so much, Hashirama_. 

“Madara?” 

He bites his tongue so hard he thinks it might have come clean off. He looks down, startled, and meets Hashirama’s eyes. He can practically feel the color drain from his face. 

There’s a veritable cascade of blood pouring from his mouth down his cheek, his hair fanned out at his side, his eyes wide and unfocused. He has laughter lines- _laughter lines_ , Madara notices, and that beautiful, questioning look on his face. Madara wants to activate his _sharingan_ , just for a moment, just for long enough to burn the sight of him into his memory again. Madara has learned the hard way, that if you try to relive old memories enough times, they start to get blurry around the edges. 

Instead, he turns to leave. 

“ _Madara_ ,” Hashirama says desperately, “Please don’t go.” 

Madara pauses, and gives a dry, sad little laugh. “You’re coming after me now?”

Hashirama exhales sharply but says nothing.

“It’s the blood loss,” Madara says, straining to sound indifferent, “You’re getting delirious. If you don’t heal yourself quickly, you’ll die.” 

“No,” Hashirama licks his lips, “It’s not- I need you to stay.” 

There’s something about the utter desperation in his tone that makes Madara’s chest feel impossibly tight. Through his clothes, he touches the scar just under his heart. He wonders if there’s a single mark on his body that Hashirama hadn’t left. 

He stops, and he turns around again. 

Silently, he circles around the brush and steps into the clearing. There’s bodies and dead vines strewn about, the earth painted with blood. It’s unsettling, if only because Hashirama has never really been- well, _violent_. He’s never been particularly inactive, either, but he’s lying still as the dead, his eyes wide and tracking Madara has he moves, questioning, desperate, and sad. 

His wound is horrific, obviously, but far more horrific than Madara’s initial estimate. It looks like there’s a long, crescent-shaped sliver of his side missing, the armor on his injured side stuck to parts of the wound, and if he has other, internal injuries, they’re clearly bad enough that he’s already bleeding from his mouth. 

Madara sucks in a sharp breath, and it still feels like he’s come up empty for air. 

“Oh,” he says, dropping to his knees beside him, “Hashirama.” 

Almost immediately, Hashirama starts searching blindly for purchase somewhere on Madara’s body. He touches his hand, trails up his arm, pulls him closer by the back of his neck, and Madara flinches, feels like he’s been struck by lightning himself. 

Hashirama drags him close and kisses his top lip. Evidently, it takes all of the strength he has left, but Madara goes easily, torn between losing himself in the feeling of Hashirama’s lips against his and trying to guide his hands down to the injury so he can heal himself- but he can’t remember how long it’s been. He’d stopped counting the years, and now Hashirama is kissing him, desperate for him, heaving his dying breaths against his lips. He’s warm, oppressively warm, just like he’s always been, and Madara leans forward and cups his jaw, catching a stray lock of his shining hair between his fingers.

They kiss, just for long enough that Madara realizes how violently both of them are shaking. 

“I loved you,” Hashirama says quietly, his features pinched in a frown, “I loved you more than anything. I should’ve told you.” 

Madara gapes at him for a moment, his left hand trailing down Hashirama’s injured side to try and stem the bleeding. 

“You’re-” Hashirama makes a pained sound, “You’re so- You’re so _beautiful_ , Madara. I could never believe how beautiful you were.”

Madara grimaces. He thinks he might be touching Hashirama’s kidney. 

“You killed me, you know,” he reminds him, only a touch bitter, “You watched me die, and you didn’t do anything.” 

“I didn’t mean to,” Hashirama says desperately, “You wouldn’t listen to me.” 

Madara’s thumb slips into an open corner of the wound, and Hashirama outright hisses.

“You still killed me.” 

“It was an accident- _Madara_.” 

“An _accident_?” Madara scoffs, “I’m sure.” 

“I was going to heal you. I could’ve-” he whimpers as Madara tries again to put pressure on the wound, his blood-slick hands passing over an exposed muscle, “Please. Madara- _Madara_.” 

“I don’t know what to do,” Madara says, a little desperately. Hashirama reaches down and brings Madara’s hands back up to his face. 

It isn’t productive. Even with his comparatively limited knowledge of medical jutsu, Madara has enough field experience to know that every second counts, especially with an injury like this- but he can’t help himself. He kisses Hashirama again, from one corner of his mouth to the other and back again, tangles his fingers in his beautiful hair. He revels in the way Hashirama puts his arms around his neck, drags him closer, moans against his lips- in pleasure or pain, Madara can’t be sure. 

He reaches down again, pressing against Hashirama’s side, now trying to infuse healing chakra through the heel of his palm. He’d never done it before; Hashirama had tried to teach him, and it invariably ended in tears, in a screaming match, in Hashirama’s body pinning Madara’s against the floor as he kicked and screamed and struggled, begged Hashirama to hit him, just hit him, just hit him so hard that he could sleep off his guilt in the hospital. 

Hashirama never hit him. Instead, he’d kiss Madara’s shoulders and lull him to sleep. 

Madara didn’t dream when Hashirama put him to sleep. It was easier that way- but oh, how Hashirama was so _easy_ to get addicted to like that, so much easier than thinking how maybe, just maybe if he was a better listener, if he was easier to teach, Izuna never would have had to die.

He shakes the thought from his head.

“You can heal yourself,” Madara says, more encouraging than indignant, “You can heal this. I’ve seen you heal worse. _Why_ aren’t you healing yourself?” 

“Why would I heal myself?” Hashirama asks. Madara pulls back slightly and sees that look of genuine perplexion, those big, imploring brown eyes that he’d fallen in love with as a child. 

“Madara, I-” he trails off, his eyes fluttering shut, and then open again, “We’re both-oh. You know.” 

His heart sinks- he thinks maybe, just _maybe_ , he’s begun to understand the gravity of the situation, because Hashirama is delirious, _beyond_ delirious, bleeding out beneath him with his side blown open and stubbornly refusing to heal himself.

As far as he knows, as far as the world knows, Madara is dead. Madara is an ancient relic. He doubts this will bode well for either of them- doubts Hashirama will be so patient, so kind when he gets his wits about him again- but the alternative is watching him die. 

“Hashirama,” Madara says seriously, “I’m real. I’m here.” 

“Mmh,” Hashirama tries for an affirmative sound. Madara presses on his side again, a coil of green chakra dying between his fingertips. 

“I’m here,” he repeats, “Hashirama, I’m _here_.”

Hashirama closes his eyes again and draws a steadying breath. “I missed you so much,” he murmurs, blindly reaching for the loose hair that frames Madara’s face, “You wouldn’t believe how much I missed you. It felt like losing a limb. Maybe like losing all of them.” 

“Alright,” Madara tries again to infuse healing chakra into Hashirama’s side, but it dies between his fingers again with a hiss and a flash of green light. “I don’t know how to do this. I know you tried to show me.” 

“You’re surprisingly hard to teach,” Hashirama murmurs, the ghost of a smile playing at his lips, “But you’re so _smart_ , Madara. I tried so hard.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Madara says hoarsely. He takes another deep breath and tries again, managing to sustain the healing chakra for a few seconds this time. The muscles in Hashirama’s side jump beneath his fingers, and Madara swears, he _swears_ he sees a damaged artery, a nerve, _something_ slip back into place. Hashirama groans and rolls his head to the side- Madara takes his hand and squeezes his fingers. 

“I need for you to help me,” Madara says softly, “At least tell me if it hurts.” 

“I didn’t know what I was doing,” Hashirama says distantly, “I just tried to love you. I didn’t know how to do anything else.” 

Madara draws a shuddering breath and finally, _finally_ manages to get a steady stream of chakra to the hand he’s braced against Hashirama’s side. 

He leans forward and rests his cheek against Hashirama’s chest, his focus perfectly divided between counting his heartbeats and trying to set his exposed rib back in place. Hashirama brings his free hand across his body to stroke Madara’s hair, his breathing stuttering and shallow. 

The gravity of the situation is coming in waves, and now it seems to hit them both at the same time. Hashirama draws a deep, labored breath and tightens his grip on Madara’s free hand, turning his head to the side to bury his nose in the dark, untidy curls at the top of his head. Madara sets his jaw and makes a quiet, pained sound. 

“I’ve always loved you,” Hashirama murmurs, “I tried so _hard_ , Madara.” 

“You did perfectly,” Madara says, not caring how strained his voice has begun to sound, “I must’ve made it difficult for you to- to love me.” 

“Not at all-” Hashirama jerks his hips slightly, tightening his fingers in Madara’s hair, “ _Ah_ -careful.”

“Sorry.” 

“It was the easiest thing I ever did,” Hashirama continues, his voice starting to shake, “...I visited you every day, you know. You kept every letter I ever wrote you, so I wrote you more.”

Madara suspects he means it. He says nothing. Instead, he focuses on Hashirama’s hand in his as he searches his body for any internal damage, listening closely to the way his heartbeat skips and slows and quickens in accordance with his chakra. 

It’s terrifying. He doesn’t know how Hashirama can do this so easily. He remembers when they were teenagers and Hashirama had found him trying to amputate his injured leg at the edge of the forest, had gently taken the cloth tourniquet he’d fashioned from the sleeve of his mantle and untied it, comforted him, healed him without stopping to think about it. Looking at Hashirama’s wound now, trying to feel his way blindly around his body, Madara is overwhelmed by the sheer volume of tissue and blood, the intricacy of all the nerves and veins in his body. 

Gently, Hashirama withdraws his hand from Madara’s hair. He guides Madara’s free hand a little closer to his hip and exhales harshly.

“Look- You’re a natural,” Hashirama coughs once, and a comparatively meager amount of blood sprays from his mouth. “Wait- oh. Madara.” 

Madara lifts his head slightly. “Yeah?” 

Hashirama looks deathly pale. Madara curses under his breath and forces another, stronger coil of chakra into his side, his fingers scrambling to hold the wound shut and keep it from bleeding anymore. 

“I think you missed an artery somewhere,” he says softly, “So I’m probably going to bleed to death.”

“Hashirama-” 

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, “I’m sorry. You did so well. I wasn’t kidding when I said you were a natural.”

“Wait,” Madara says sharply, squeezing his hand, “Wait, wait, hang on, just- just remind me how- how blood works.”

“Mmh,” Hashirama closes his eyes and exhales slowly, “Something to do with bone marrow, I think.” 

“That doesn’t help me,” Madara says, barking out a short, hysterical laugh. He holds Hashirama’s hand so tightly he thinks he might break his fingers. “Just stay awake a little longer.”

Hashirama makes a dull, tired sound and rolls his head to the side, resting his forehead against Madara’s temple. His eyes are half-open, earnest and sad and still hopeful and so, so adoring. He squeezes Madara’s hand tightly and smiles a little, running his thumb over his knuckles. “Oh,” he laughs weakly, “Was I dead already?” 

“No,” Madara says quickly, “No, I already told you, I’m here and I’m real.” 

“And you love me,” Hashirama supplies, smiling gently, “You love me.” 

“Hashirama,” he says desperately, “I don’t know what to do.” 

“You’ve done enough. It’s okay.” 

Madara’s focus finally wavers enough that the infusion of chakra starts to fail again, and he sits back on his haunches. He covers his mouth with the hand not holding Hashirama’s and uses the heel of his palm to muffle a sob. 

He can’t remember the last time he’d cried properly- it must have been years. Whenever he did, it was like some switch would flip in Hashirama and he’d drop whatever he was doing to comfort him, kiss his shoulders and hold him still so he couldn’t lay waste to his home and the village in his anger, his rage- but Madara doesn’t feel angry now. He feels a little defeated, a little disoriented, but mostly he just feels heartbroken. Terrified. 

Hashirama squeezes his hand and gives him a puzzled expression, his eyes bright and unfocused and so full of utter adoration that it makes him sick. 

“Don’t cry,” Hashirama urges him, “It’ll be better in a minute.” 

“I’m _real_ ,” Madara says again, “I’m telling you, I’m _real_.” 

“You’re beautiful. You’re so, so beautiful- please don’t cry-” 

“Then fucking _heal_ yourself,” Madara snaps, his voice cracking, “I know you could if you wanted to, you big fucking dummy-” He swallows thickly, turning his gaze from Hashirama so he doesn’t have to see the flicker of hurt in his big brown eyes. “I want you to stay with me- no, fuck that, I _need_ you to stay with me, you stupid, selfless bastard.”

Hashirama huffs out a laugh and closes his eyes fully.

“ _Hashirama_ -”

“I love you,” he says, barely more than a whisper, “I love you so much.”

Madara presses down so hard on Hashirama’s side that he’s a little worried that the wound will reopen itself- but it’s a knee-jerk reaction, something deeply intuitive and senseless and probably so so stupid. Hashirama makes a high-pitched, pained sound and his chakra surges weakly, slipping the artery back into place and closing the last inch of the wound almost instantaneously.

He heaves a loud, pained sigh, his head falling back against the ground. He finds Madara’s forearms and holds them tightly, his breath coming in progressively less shallow bursts as his body finally starts to heal itself. 

The rain comes slowly at first, rattling the forest canopy the way the wind would move the curtains in Hashirama’s bedroom. Sometimes, when Mito was away on diplomatic missions, Hashirama invited Madara to stay- got him drunk on passionflower tea and stayed up braiding his hair and kissing him long after he’d fallen asleep. 

The grey mornings were always Madara’s favorites. He loved waking up with the room just a little bit too cold, Hashirama’s bare chest against his back and his arms wound tightly around his waist like the smallest gust of wind might pick Madara up and carry him away to where Hashirama would never be able to reach him again. And Hashirama always ran so, so hot, held Madara so tightly when they were together that it felt like being suffocated. Madara thinks, with only a trace of bitterness, that maybe that would’ve been the way to go- with Hashirama’s arms around his hips and his breathing deep and even and hot against his ear until the very last second. 

And it’s grey now- the rain comes down in sheets and Madara sits in the mud with his hands braced on Hashirama’s heaving chest and his outstretched bicep, trying to diffuse warm chakra through his fingertips. He’s aware, only distantly, that Hashirama is speaking to him- crying, maybe- but the rain washes out the quiet, half-dead rattle of his voice, and Madara watches his lips with such intense, singular focus that eventually, Hashirama notices and reaches up to touch his face, trying to ground him again. 

He looks through Hashirama at first, despairing as his dark eyes get lucid again, bright and eager and questioning. 

_I didn’t come find you_ , he reads on Hashirama’s lips, _You’ve been here this whole time. I never came to find you._

Madara shrugs. His ears are ringing, and Hashirama is crying harder than Madara thinks he’s ever seen him cry before, trembling so hard that Madara can feel it in his jaw. He thinks maybe he’s crying too, if the way Hashirama is frantically wiping his under eyes with his thumbs is any indication- but it’s raining. It’s still raining. 

_Madara_ , he reads, _Madara, Madara, oh, Madara._

He closes his eyes. 

Hashirama’s lips are soft and full and they taste like salt and earth and Madara kisses him back without thinking about it. His hands find their way to Hashirama’s shining hair and he tugs gently, holding him close. _Stay here_ , he wants to say, _don’t let go of me, don’t move a muscle._

“Oh,” Hashirama breathes, reverent and placated and utterly, utterly adoring, “ _Madara_.”

At first, Hashirama counts the seconds. 

Tobirama finds him in the valley in the morning with Madara’s body cradled against his chest, and he bites his knuckles to keep from retching. Hashirama is counting under his breath and Tobirama kneels beside him, braces one hand on his thigh and the other on the back of his neck, holding him still as an ANBU member carefully slides Madara’s body out of his arms. 

“Anija,” he says gently, “Anija.” 

He spends the day on the riverbank with Hashirama’s head in his lap, kissing his forehead and patting his chest in a feeble attempt to console him. The sky is grey in the morning. It never gets lighter. 

Eventually, Hashirama starts counting the minutes. He spends a lot of time calculating the number of days since Madara has died, and then from there he finds the hours, and from there he finds the minutes, and keeps track in a small notebook with tally marks while Tobirama files his paperwork for him. He sleeps in Madara’s mantles and, for a very long time, refuses to wash them.

And at Mito’s urging, Tobirama visits frequently, consoles Hashirama when he’s irritable, combs his hair, cleans his clothes, his linens. He makes tea for Mito, and she touches his hands and they sit in silence in the kitchen while Hashirama ‘sleeps it off’. 

“Hashirama loved him,” Mito says simply once, “He adored him. My heart breaks for them both.” 

Tobirama says nothing. He squeezes her fingers and sips his tea. 

Eventually, Hashirama starts to count the days, skipping over counting the hours entirely, much to Tobirama’s relief. The color returns to his face slowly- slowly, he finds it in himself to prune the overgrown garden in his courtyard, to comb his own hair again, to wake up early enough to stretch and to make himself tea. He still sleeps in Madara’s clothes, and Mito had taken to the guest house. He knows that Hashirama loves her, admires her, even, but he suspects she could never hold a handle to Madara in that regard. _A forest fire_ , Hashirama had called him, _a gift from the divine._

Tobirama hadn’t proofread many of Hashirama’s letters- but he’d proofread enough. 

Madara never responded, officially, but Tobirama supposed Madara had loved him in his own right. He had seen it in the way he held his brother’s shoulders steady during long meetings, the way he let Hashirama wrap around him like a snake about a pole when they slept, the quiet mornings in the tower where Madara sat prone on the edge of his desk, Hashirama’s hands passing over his hips and his waist and the fabric at his ribs as they kissed in the mornings when they thought nobody had been watching. 

In the end, Tobirama knows he probably shouldn’t have held onto Madara’s body. Hashirama had wanted him buried with Izuna on the grounds of one of the old Uchiha compounds a few kilometers outside of the village, had wanted to cultivate a small memorial garden for them with amaranths and aster and baby’s breath, leave them both offerings, leave them both letters.

So Tobirama had buried a henge aside Izuna- tried very hard to not think about how Hashirama knew with such certainty where the younger boy’s previously unmarked grave was. It stirred something up in the cavern of his chest, like guilt, or disgust, maybe with himself, even.

By the time Hashirama finds the letters, he’d more or less stopped- well, _counting_. Things were better until they weren’t. 

Hashirama disappears after a few years, just the once. Mito is away on a diplomatic mission, and Hashirama had complained that he felt under the weather- that he wanted to stay home and rest for the day. When Tobirama goes to his house the next morning, he finds it empty- paper windows in tatters, _mokuton_ in wild coils shooting up from the floor. He isn’t sure what to make of it- but he feels certain that Hashirama will turn up eventually, and tries not to panic. 

After two days, Tobirama finds him in Madara’s house at the edge of the village. The bedroom is immaculately clean- when he comes inside, he finds Hashirama adjusting a wire letter organizer on Madara’s desk, the floor crawling with jenny and moss and wildflowers. He feels a little sick to his stomach.

“He kept most of them,” Hashirama says simply, “He even transcribed them. Over and over and _over_ again.” 

Tobirama lifts a letter carefully from the edge of his desk, one of the only artifacts of clutter left in the room. In the corner, against the wall, there’s an intricately detailed portrait of Madara with his head against Hashirama’s chest, drawn from the mirror at the foot of his bed. In the portrait, Hashirama’s eyes are half open, his arm draped loosely around Madara’s shoulders, the ends of his hair wound around his fingers. He looks… peaceful. Maybe more peaceful than Tobirama had ever seen him. 

He studies the letter- it’s a transcription, and a terrible one at that, so terrible he isn’t sure he can even get the gist of it.

“Anija, his handwriting is terrible,” he says dryly, trying for humor, “If I didn’t know better, I might think Madara was illiterate.” 

  
  


_Madara_

_I think you would look beautiful with argan oil in your hair. Sometimes, I worry that you don’t take care of yourself thoroughly enough- I think you’ll smile, you’ll roll your eyes, you’ll say, ‘you’re delusional, Hashirama, you’re biased, you spoil me’. When I want to keep myself awake, I think about your head on my chest, about your fingers playing at the hem of my shirt- the little things, you know._

_It’s the little things, after all- I’m almost comically unsubtle, but I think that in the end the little things are easily my favorite way to love you. So I’m sending you camphor for your muscles, and oil for your hair- I suspect you could probably use the oil on your face too. I haven’t tried._

_I miss you. I hope you’re well._

_H._

Hashirama comes back in intervals.

He wakes up in a panic the first time, scrambling for his side. Madara’s arms come around him almost instantly.

“You’re okay,” he says, quiet and sure, “You’re okay. Lie back down.”

“Madara?”

“…Yeah.”

Hashirama says nothing. Instead, he closes his eyes again and lies down, slipping his arms around Madara’s waist and pillowing his head on his chest. Madara seems to hesitate for a moment before he puts his arms back around his shoulders, angling his hips toward Hashirama. He takes the cue easily and throws his leg over Madara’s, curling around him like a sated cat. He falls back asleep slowly, counting Madara’s breaths.

When he wakes up for the second time, he’s quiet. He watches Madara snoring softly beside him and wonders how long he’s been alive, how long he’s been alone, if he maybe still hates Hashirama. He has every right to.

He reaches up and touches Madara’s eyes with his first finger, experimentally rolling back his right eyelid. The iris of his eye is hollow, shock-white, cloudy and unseeing. Madara groans tiredly and takes his hand, kisses across his fingers.

“Did I do that?” Hashirama asks.

“No,” Madara says plainly, “I did.”

Without thinking, Hashirama pushes himself up on his elbows and kisses beneath his eye, then settles back down at Madara’s side.

“Why did you leave?”

Madara scoffs. “I don’t think I know anymore. Not really.”

“Well, do you have an answer at all?”

“I loved you, and you weren’t mine.”

Hashirama bites his lip. “…I think that’s a pretty good answer.”

“You didn’t wait for me. Not when it mattered. I didn’t hear from you for months, and when I found you again, you were married.”

Hashirama grimaces. “It was political.”

“You could’ve said no.” 

“I should’ve. But I was twenty. I was terrified- but I loved you anyways. I loved you the whole time. I never made a secret of that.”

“No. Not to me,” Madara says tiredly, “But you kept me from the world. I think that’s what stung about it.”

To say he felt a little guilty would be an understatement. To say guilt at all, maybe, would be an understatement. Hashirama rolls onto his stomach so he’s lying with his arms folded on Madara’s chest. Madara exhales shakily, and Hashirama draws tiny, concentric circles on his chest with his first finger.

Madara had always liked when he did that, Hashirama recalls fondly. Sometimes it even put him to sleep- one minute, he was humming affirmatively at everything Hashirama had to say and the next he was sleeping soundly, his breathing deep and warm and even.

“If you’re willing to come back with me-“

“You’re-“ Madara swallows thickly, his features pinched in a frown. “You’re going?”

“No,” Hashirama says at once, “Oh, Madara, _no._ Not without you.”

Madara draws a sudden, shuddering breath. Without thinking about it, Hashirama reaches around his shoulders and pulls him on his side so they’re eye-level, facing each other with a hair’s breadth between their lips and their foreheads.

He hates seeing Madara cry, he really, really does- but there’s something about the way he goes quietly this time, how there’s no trace of his usual rage and embarrassment and selfless restraint behind it. It’s the first time Hashirama thinks he’s seen Madara allow himself to grieve in a very, very long time, and so he lets him, he puts his arms securely around Madara’s shoulders, bites his tongue to keep from yowling as Madara’s arms come tightly around his waist, threatening to reopen his shoddily healed injury.

“I can’t go back,” Madara says into his chest, “I can’t. You know I can’t.”

“Kagami misses you,” Hashirama tries, patting his back gently, “So do Naori, and Hikaku, and your falcons, and _me_.”

Madara makes a wounded sound and holds him tighter, burying his face in Hashirama’s shoulder.

“You kept all my letters,” Hashirama says absently, stroking his hair, “You kept _everything_.”

“I wanted to-“ Madara swallows, “I wanted to teach myself how to read from them.”

Hashirama pulls back slightly and cocks his head to the side, looking down at Madara with a quizzical expression.

Madara sighs tiredly.

“I can’t _read_.”

Hashirama furrows his eyebrows. “What?”

“I can’t read, Hashirama,” Madara mutters, “And certainly not your flowery cursive. I know how to read old Uchiha cyphers, and that’s about it.”

“But you-“

“Whenever you handed me paperwork, I signed it unquestioningly,” Madara explains, “I didn’t care what it said after a certain point.”

“But-“

“I memorized the shape of your writing. That’s how I transcribed it. I looked at it artistically.”

Hashirama huffs out a little laugh. He tilts Madara’s head back gently and kisses him, wiping beneath his eyes with his thumbs. Madara relaxes against him, loosening his grip on Hashirama’s waist and settling back into his pillow.

“I expected nothing less from you,” Hashirama says gently, “That’s my Madara. Such a talent.”

When Hashirama wakes up for the third time, the tiredness is gone from him.

Madara’s side of the bed is empty, but his slippers are set neatly by the door, his corner of the quilt folded back haphazardly, and an open sketchbook abandoned on the floor. Hashirama sweeps his hair out of his face and ties it back with the length of ribbon that had come loose from it in his sleep- had Madara put it up for him? He couldn’t remember.

Frankly, he wasn’t really sure where he was. Gentle, orange light is pouring through the window. Hashirama gets slowly to his feet and peeks outside, straining against the brightness of the sunrise. There’s another clay building about thirty yards away, only a story high, the mountains standing tall and proud and purple in the distance. Below, he sees Madara walking alongside a little orange cat, a pot of water balanced on his forearm. He’s smiling placidly, walking slowly, carefully, allowing for the cat to weave between his legs. He doesn’t look quite as tired as he was before, but there’s still a sort of sad, resigned look about him.

Hashirama doesn’t hear Madara come in- evidently, the house didn’t have a front door. He finds that a little comical. Madara could be a bit paranoid, but he supposes, out in the wild, living between ancient ruins, dead to the world, there was no need for it.

He lets himself wonder for a minute what it might be like to stay here, just the two of them. Mostly, he imagines, they’d sleep.

He walks down the stairs carefully, his hand braced against the clay ledge carved into the wall in lieu of a railing. His side doesn’t hurt anymore, but he’s acutely aware of a tiny floating fragment of his last rib swimming around somewhere in his chest, a small, painfully throbbing blood clot he’ll have to evacuate later if he wants to keep his kidney from failing somewhere down the line.

Madara is standing barefoot in the kitchen, wrapped in a robe Hashirama can instantly recognize as Izuna’s. It’s a bright, ocean blue, decorated with embroidered fish. It fits him snugly- Madara had always been considerably stockier than Izuna. The cat he’d seen outside is rubbing against his bare calf, another cat with a shining, calico coat basking in the sunrise on the ledge of the kitchen window.

Hashirama clears his throat. Madara whirls around.

"Oh," he says breathlessly,“Hashirama, hey. Hey.”

“It looks nice out,” Hashirama says absently, falling into the chair Madara yanks out from his kitchen table for him, “Orange mornings were always my favorites.”

Madara hums, amused. With a practiced wave of his hand over the stovetop, he catches the charcoal beneath the pot of water he’d brought inside- Hashirama thinks it’s incredibly domestic- and then he folds his arms and leans against the counter, visibly antsy. Hashirama frowns.

“Are you alright?” Hashirama tries.

Madara looks at his feet. “Now that you’ve got your bearings in order, I suppose you’ll try to kill me again.”

Hashirama flinches. “No.”

Madara bites his lip. “I assume everyone in the village is out looking for you by now.”

“Probably.”

“So…”

“So?”

Madara shrugs. He looks up again, but his face is turned away from Hashirama, like he’s afraid to meet his eyes.

“So you’ll probably go back soon?”

“I,” Hashirama licks his lips, “I’m not sure.”

“…Do you want to?”

Hashirama gets to his feet silently and boxes Madara in against the counter, bracing his hands on either side of his hips. Madara closes his eyes. He stands very, very still.

He cups Madara’s chin and turns his head to the side slightly, swallowing the tiny, startled noise he makes. He kisses him gently, parts his lips and slides his hands under the open lapels of Madara’s robe. Madara shudders against him, but he lets himself be dragged closer, presses his hips against Hashirama’s.

Hashirama pushes Madara’s robe off of his shoulders, running his hands from the crook of his jaw down his neck, down his shoulders, down his arms. Madara exhales sharply. In response, he reaches up and grabs a handful of Hashirama’s hair, yanking him closer as he pushes himself up to sit on the edge of the counter.

Distantly, Hashirama is aware that little clusters of wildflowers are springing up between the shiny, shattered tiles on the floor beneath his feet, and the cabinets above the stovetop creak loudly. Madara laughs against his lips.

“I’ll take my time deciding,” Hashirama murmurs, “If you don’t mind, maybe I’ll lie low with you for a while.”

Madara smiles and laughs again. It’s an utterly relieved sound- almost musical. Hashirama can’t help himself, and he kisses him again, bracing his hand firmly against the small of Madara’s back and holding him in place, their hips pressed together, their chests only a hair’s breadth apart. Madara’s robe slides down his arm, exposing the pink knot of scar tissue beneath his breastbone. Hashirama presses on it experimentally and Madara gasps, digs his fingernails into the back of his neck. The cabinets creak again.

“ _Don’t_ -“ he says hoarsely, “Oh. Please don’t.”

“Sorry,” Hashirama murmurs, “Sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Madara breathes, “Just- go slowly. And if you’re serious about lying low, at least _try_ to keep your chakra under control.”

Hashirama laughs breathily and kisses him again. “You don’t make it easy for me. You never have.”

Madara smiles wickedly. Hashirama suspects that at the end of the day he doesn’t care one bit.

“Just like old times,” Hashirama remarks breathlessly, watching with a placated smile as Madara frantically tries to fan smoke out of his bedroom window. He’d singed the curtains at the end, and because they were such fine linen, they’d gone up in flames almost instantly. Madara had leapt to his feet and smothered the flames with his hands, still soaked in sweat and barely lucid, swearing himself hoarse. 

“I liked those curtains,” Madara whines, “This is your fault.”

“Is not,” Hashirama huffs. He admires a cluster of day lilies that have sprung from Madara’s bedside table, reaching out and running the last knuckle of his index finger along the curves of their petals.

“It is,” Madara snaps, “I’ve told you time and time again, if you don’t want me accidentally leveling a forest, you can’t _manhandle_ me like-“

“Could you get me a glass of water?” Hashirama asks, flopping onto his back, giving Madara a pleading, innocent smile.

Madara glowers at him- but there’s a trace of softness shining in his eyes. 

Hashirama is so beautiful that it hurts. Even now, with his side wrapped in bloodied bandages, his hair hanging halfway out of his ponytail, his skin sticky with sweat, holding the cord of his necklace in his mouth- Madara wouldn’t trade him for the world.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much steph for giving such life to my work <3 it's a blessing to know you, alhamdulilah


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